“Is he OK?” said Annette, thinking of Robert in jail. “What’s happened?” she repeated desperately.
Louis dropped the phone and the towel and embraced his wife. He was shaking, crying for the first time Annette had ever seen. “He’s OK,” Louis was saying. “He’s OK, he’s OK.”
Annette began to cry.
“He’s OK, baby. He’s OK. They—”
He gathered himself and took a deep breath. Noticing his nakedness, Louis took his monogrammed robe from where it hung on the back of the bathroom door and put it on. He rubbed his eyes. “They just arrested Roma Brownson,” he said.
“What?”
“It’s not Robert. It was never Robert.”
“I don’t understand,” said Annette.
Louis said, “Fuck.” He turned to Annette. “Roma Brownson. Did you ever…could you imagine…”
Annette shook her head, speechless. “Can we…can I…can we go get Robert?” she said.
Louis said, as if unaware he was speaking audibly, “I thought he’d killed her.”
“Louis!” said Annette.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” said Louis. “Someone says they’re going to leave you? You go…you can go crazy. You can do anything.”
Annette wanted her husband to erase what he had just said; she wanted to go back in time, to not have heard him. “What does that mean, you can do anything?” she said.
“I’m just saying, you can’t hold a man responsible for—” Louis stopped himself.
“For what?” said Annette.
“We’re animals, in the end, Annette. All of us. I know you don’t want to believe that, honey, but it’s true.”
Annette stared at him.
“You know your precious coyote?” said Louis. And though Annette had not answered, he went on. “Coyotes are dangerous,” said Louis. “They can attack, Annette! Who even knows! And so I protected you. I protect my family. You do what you have to do. That’s what being a man is, Annette. But you get to pretend life is unicorns and rainbows. Because I protect you, and allow you to live in a fucking bubble with your spoiled friends. All of you, you get to pretend you’re safe.”
“The coyote?” said Annette.
“Actually, Annette, Robert handled it.”
“Oh, Louis.”
“I’m getting dressed,” said Louis. “Toby’s on the way.” He went toward his walk-in closet, where the maid had hung all his ironed shirts, each hanger spaced exactly one inch from the next.
“You made our son kill the coyote?” said Annette. Louis didn’t answer. “Why would you do that?” she said. “How, Louis?”
“How what?” he said.
“You told me you got rid of the gun.”
“Grow up,” said Louis. “You can believe what I tell you and be secure, or you can be an adult in the real world. That’s your call.”
Annette watched her husband dress, feeling painfully awake. Her skin hurt, understanding how much she had wanted to be oblivious, how much pleasure she had gained by allowing herself to trust whatever Louis told her.
What had she done to her son? Maybe Robert thought she condoned Louis’s actions—his sexism, his firearm, his insecure concept of manhood. Maybe Robert thought she was too dumb to understand, or too weak to stand up to Louis.
Was she?
-6-
Austin American-Statesman
GREENBELT MURDER IS A “CRAIGSLIST DRUG DEAL” GONE WRONG
At a news conference this morning, Austin Police Chief José Ramirez announced that the so-called Greenbelt Murder Case is connected to a “Craigslist Drug Deal.”
“We have reason to believe that the victim, Lucy Masterson, bought prescription hydrocodone pills from an online drug dealer in the hours before her death on the Barton Creek Greenbelt,” said Ramirez. “More details to come, but the Austin Police detectives are following every lead. In the meantime, please keep an eye on your children’s mobile devices. These opioid dealers are a scourge on our fine city, and we will stop them. I repeat: we will stop them. But we need your help.”
Ramirez announced the formation of a tip line specifically for any suspicious behavior related to opioid abuse in the public schools or online drug trafficking with so-called Craigslist Drug Dealers. The tip line is listed below and all callers will remain anonymous.
The body of Lucy Masterson was found in the early-morning hours of June first on the Barton Hills Greenbelt. A teenager from the neighborhood was arrested last night but—in a whiplash change of course—a different Barton Hills teenager, as yet unnamed, was arrested this morning.
Many Austinites are unaware of the trail system that runs through the city, culminating at Barton Springs and Auditorium Shores. “It seems sketchy down there,” says Leanne Gorowski, who operates Austin Duck tours. “I’m happy to pay my three dollars for a swim at Barton Springs, but to go down around those trails? Bunch of potheads and homeless people, if you ask me. Anybody with three dollars in their pocket would stay near pavement.”
At the Gus Fruh swimming hole, packed with families on a recent Saturday, a local mother disagrees. “My three-year-old twins, Florence and Harriet, and I come swimming here every day,” says Rachel Mishansha. “It’s the jewel of the city, and one reason we moved from Brooklyn.” She adds, “You think the greenbelt is sketchy? Try Cabrini-Green. This place is paradise.” When asked if the body found on the greenbelt made her feel unsafe, Mishansha says, “Look. There is danger everywhere. I keep an eye on my kids, and it’s 106 degrees, and we’re going swimming. It’s safer here than in a real city! By which I mean a bigger city. A city where you can get real Chinese food. You know what I mean?”
-7-
Liza
I WANDERED THROUGH MY house. Whitney and the lawyer had been calling me nonstop until I turned off my phone. Did we need to run? Was Bobcat still in jail? I didn’t want to leave Oak Glen, but even if Charlie’s DNA didn’t match （and of course it wouldn’t…there was absolutely no way the boys had attacked a woman, held her down and…no. It was unfathomable）， there was a possibility that Charlie’s face—and mine—could end up in the papers.
Our photo in the national news…it could reach Cape Cod. The thought of my sad past—the gray skies, the desperation, my broken mom—filled me with fear. I would not allow the black cloud to reach us. I would make sure Charlie never felt the awful sense of doom, the belief that there was nothing better, no way out.
There was always a way out. Besides, doing something, anything, always felt better than staying still. When I stopped moving, the pain caught up with me, old emotions, new worries. I preferred to stay in motion.
I had a Ziploc bag with a few photographs of my old life including one I’d taken of Patrick at a beach bonfire, the flames lighting up his face. I’d thought then that he looked like a J.Crew model in his fisherman’s-knit cable sweater and chino shorts; I stuck the photo in between the pages of the Bible from Charlie’s First Communion, jammed them both in the bottom of a duffel.
I added clothes and the copy of Joy of Cooking I’d been marking up since I’d moved to Austin. All my underwear, my bathing suits, nice clogs. I went into the kitchen and opened my spice drawer. It stuck a bit and needed a strong tug.